


Shelf Life

by cormallen



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-23
Updated: 2010-01-23
Packaged: 2017-10-06 14:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cormallen/pseuds/cormallen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coda to 5.04.</p><p><i>If he just kept that mouth shut a little more often. If he just smiled and nodded when he damn well fucking shoulda, maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be here right now</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelf Life

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Llewlin.
> 
> Thank you for the betas, [rejeneration](http://rejeneration.livejournal.com) and [mickeym](http://mickeym.livejournal.com)!

When it says it's not a thing, or a shifter, or a demon, Dean already knows. He's done all the usual shit, the holy water, chalk lines on the floor and the waxy smell of the blessed candles.

It coughs, licks too-pink, puffy lips. "Fuck, was it necessary to shove the salt down my throat?" and no, it probably wasn't, but Dean had to be sure.

Human; he's entirely human, and that makes Dean wary, itchy under the skin. Thinking of him as an _it_ had been much more comforting.

"I'm you," his almost twin says, "except from 2009," and Dean sighs, rubs his face, feels the headache start uncoiling somewhere deep inside.

"OK. You're me. Fine. Tell me something only I would know."

He listens to the story about the panties like it happened to someone else. In the recesses of his mind, he knows it's absolutely, one hundred percent true, down to the feeling of slinky, soft pink satin sliding up his legs, stretching over his ass, smelling of warm, clean girl like he hasn't smelled in longer than he can count. It feels irrelevant, inconsequential. Pointless.

It might as well have happened to another person.

"OK," Dean says again, because this isn't the story anyone trying to get to him would choose. "Say I believe you. So, how did you end up here?"

When the doppelganger says, "Zachariah," it feels like a betrayal. Like a fucking stab in the back, because he'd probably be happier seeing Zachariah, even now. For all that they still wouldn't see anything remotely eye to eye, for all that they still wouldn't have a damn thing to say to each other, it would still mean something. Something Dean hesitates to call hope, because if he had anything to hope for, Zachariah would have come himself. Not sent _him_ here, this freckle-cheeked, soft-lipped thing. "Sarah Palin's president," says the thing – Dean, his brain helpfully supplies, Dean Winchester, son of John, son of Mary, brother –

"Sarah Palin? Seriously?" the doppelganger says again, makes a face like it fucking matters.

Like presidents or senates or parliaments or kings still matter at all. So the president of a handful of guys holed up in a bunker somewhere votes Republican. Not like the bloodthirsty mutants outside give a good goddamn.

Dean leaves his double cuffed to the pipe, angrily rattling the chain, booted feet scrabbling at the floor, says he doesn't want his people having the Parent Trap experience, and wonders where the hell that came from. He can't remember when he would have seen the Parent Trap last, maybe caught the ass-end of it in a motel room sometime in two-thousand-something, maybe the remake with Lindsay Lohan, maybe the original, with that blond chick who grew up into Miss Bliss on Saved by the Bell, and he thinks he maybe saw a rerun of that sometime in the mid-nineties. The last movie he really remembers watching is The Fifth Element, on Sgt. Cameron's little personal DVD player, before he put his foot down and requisitioned the batteries for bigger and better things.

That was in 2011. Cameron kicked it in '12.

Just knowing he's got his double locked up in the shed makes Dean antsy, uneasy, fingers jumpy over his holster.

When he sees him running loose, he almost slips on the trigger, and for a painfully long second, entertains the thought of feeding the gun right into that perpetually half-opened, slutty, idiot mouth. Bang. Wonders if he'd even get enough time to see the doppelganger fall down before he up and pops out of existence.

Probably not. That would be too fucking much to ask for.

Because no matter how many times Dean says, "You ain't me," no matter how much he repeats, "You don't know a thing I know," no matter how true all that may be, deep down, they're the same man, blood to bones, son of John, son of Mary, brother of – brother of – and he almost pulls the trigger then, too, because it's all Dean Winchester's fault.

If he just kept that mouth shut a little more often. If he just smiled and nodded when he damn well fucking shoulda, maybe, just maybe, they wouldn't be here right now.

He'll learn, Dean tells himself. Oh, he'll learn. He'll have to. Provided Zachariah, or whoever, still gives enough of a damn to throw that Dean Winchester back into his own time. Otherwise, a couple of days, and the timelines will do that irrevocable consistency paradox thing, throw the both of them somewhere into limbo or oblivion.

Sam would know how to explain it better, Dean thinks. Sam would know just the right words, maybe even the name of the scientist. Sam always thought he knew everything, but, of course, Sam isn't here.

And he ain't going down into oblivion without him.

"So, Cas," his doppelganger asks, "the hell is wrong with him? What's he, stoned all the time now?"

"Mm-hmm," Dean shrugs noncommittally and doesn't say anything more. He's fucking learned to keep his mouth shut now, when needed. But it still makes him feel a kind of sickly satisfied to watch the double's confusion as he listens to Castiel chat up his girls.

Yeah, sweetheart, he thinks, this is the angel who fell for us. And wasn't that worth it.

He and Castiel fucked once, about two and a half years ago. "I just gotta know what it feels like," Castiel explained, like it was the most normal thing in the world, wagging a bottle of lube in the air, and Dean wondered where the hell he'd had it squirreled away. At that point, it was easier to just smile and nod than try to explain to the angel why he really, really didn't feel like it.

"Well?" he asked after, rolling off the grimy mattress and tucking his shirt into his jeans.

"Yeah, alright," Castiel said thoughtfully, stretching out on his back. "It's not without its charm, but I can probably live without ever doing it again."

The doppelganger doesn't understand.

No. No, they're not the same man. They can't be, Dean decides, and rubs his hand absently over the worn, comforting grip of his Glock.

"Oh, so we're torturing again," the doppelganger says, his ridiculous pink mouth stretching into a judgmental smirk, and shit, it's been years since anyone dared tell him his mouth would look perfect stuffed full of dick. Torturing again, like it's a wagon to fall off of, like the double knows a thing about it. Like the double knows even a fraction of what Dean's had to learn.

Dean knows exactly how long they have – 2 hours and just under 15 minutes, before it's too late to shoot the poor bastard who's gone and gotten himself infected.

He knows the little twitches, the subtle, minute tics – nerve, muscle, skin – as they _change_. Die. _Change_ again.

He knows that the shelf life of a Twinkie isn't actually five, or ten, or twenty years. Contrary to urban legend, snack cakes rot just as well as everything else. No, if you want to stockpile non-perishables, you're better off with plain old canned goods. Not that those are eternal, either.

He knows what it's like to look in his brother's eyes and see something else inside. Something dark and alien and hopelessly, thoroughly evil. Risen from hell and wearing Sam like a fucking tuxedo. And to be fair, the other Dean knows that, too, the little niggling voice pipes up inside his head, and Dean fists his fingers together, rough nails gritting into skin, skin going thin and taut and pale.

"Well, he doesn't fucking know it like I do," he snarls, and that's when the doppelganger opens his mouth again.

"Doesn't know what?"

He's bruising his knuckles on the doppelganger's mouth before he's even aware he's moved. Before he has any idea how badly he's wanted to do it for the last five years.

It kicks out with its legs, shoves a hard, bony knee into Dean's stomach. Bashes an elbow into his face, and Dean bashes back, again and again, feeling soft, swelling flesh split and bleed under his fists, as its steel-toed boot pounds him in the kneecap, as it stupidly tries, again and again, to throw him off. Still pretending it has the power to change a goddamn thing.

Still trying to convince himself he matters.

His hands are raw, the skin dark and angry-red when he pulls back, and Dean's cheekbones are mottling black and blue already, left eye aching and swelling shut. His bottom lip is bloody over his red-stained teeth, metallic salt taste bursting over his tongue as he leans down, licks the trickle of blood from Dean's chin, covers his lips with his own hurting mouth.

"What the fuck," his double grunts when he comes up for air. Dean shrugs and looks away.

"I just gotta know what it feels like."


End file.
